On duty today as I watched the children, a gentle breeze blew and the autumn leaves of our gorgeous trees started to fall. We are six weeks into the school year, and it is exciting to see, hear and feel our staff and students connecting to each other and their classes.

Our Year 3 and Year 5 students have been busy completing their NAPLAN assessments, and we couldn't be prouder of their efforts and to you for supporting their attendance.

Our Party in the Playground was a wonderful opportunity to connect as a wider community and next week another chance to connect will be at the 3 to 6 Athletics Carnival where we will see our newly elected House Captains cheer on and support the participants. To see the Year 6 children prepare and give their speeches was fabulous and I congratulate all of the students who were brave enough to take on this challenge.

This week we also held our first Coffee Meet to give our families the chance to come and have a casual chat about what is working well at Glenorchy Primary and what we can do to improve. Thank you to the parents who came along, we loved talking to you. We are hopeful now that we have had our first Coffee Meet that more parents/carers will come along in Term 2.

What we heard:

• We value the principal and staff being visible and approachable and connecting with families and children.
• We want to find ways to connect with other parents in our class.
• We are happy with school.
• We think more people will come to Coffee Meet, if they know it is not an ongoing commitment and that it is friendly with coffee and afternoon tea.
• We will find out more about the School Lunch Program in 2025.
• We are all still learning how to use Seesaw and parents want more posts in upper primary.
  

The EAL team and I met this week to plan opportunities to help our wonderful community continue to flourish. We know many families are currently fasting for Ramadan and how important this cultural time is for them and our community. We will be sharing many cultural stories this year through our newsletter and on Seesaw.

We have an exciting plan for Harmony Week which includes YOU! We want you thinking about “A word or phrase that YOU love in your own language”, we will be asking you to place it on a sticky note in the foyer from Monday 24^th March.

In the theme of Harmony Week, let’s celebrate our Glenorchy Primary School inclusiveness, respect and the ways we help each other feel safe and belong to our school. It is great to see so many STAR value awards at assembly each week.

It is a joy to work at Glenorchy Primary School, thank you for being so kind and helping me feel a part of the community.

What a great day it is when our school comes together to celebrate our children and families, our whole community on that Wednesday in March now known as Party Day!

Our staff all work together to create activites for all of our families to come along and share. There is always so much to do (and such good things to eat!).

This year saw the passing of the wings to our new fairy floss fairy!! We did note a fairly large decrease in fairy floss on the sticks as the arms and the dress of the fairy gathered up the excess. We are sure our 'fairy' will get better with practice!!

A popular attraction was the 'make your own milkshake pedal power' machine. There were some tired legs but the milkshakes were worth the effort!

Our parachute team added much colour and laughter to the afternoon.

A special and very big thank you to Miss Ali and Mrs Miles whose collective passion for connecting with our families bring this fun event together every year.

5-6 Alexander were treated to a great excursion last week at the Material Institute (Botanical) - the headquarters of 24 Carrot Gardens. It is in Bridgewater on the banks of the Derwent. There is a great market garden growing fresh produce for 24 Carrot schools as well as local community groups, along with seed production to keep all the gardens green and growing throughout the year.

We participated in three fun workshops focused on sustainability and the re-use of materials.

We used clay to make re-usable ceramic mugs in the ceramic studio. We were taught how to mould the clay and created our own designs.

We donned our white lab coats and safety gear to create our own lavender and orange scented body sprays in the lab and learnt how to make more at home (our houses will smell so good!!).

We cooked up a treat with delicious pasta in a tomato sauce and fresh salad.

It was a really great day and we finished it off with some playground fun.

We all enjoyed the day and Miss Alexander even awarded the whole class a certificate celebrating our behaviour and enthusiasm on the day.

We have so much to celebrate at Glenorchy Primary, not the least of which is our diversity and we are very lucky to have so many of our students coming from such diverse cultural and indigenous backgrounds. We can all learn so much from each other.

We all celebrate special occasions, birthdays, Christmas, Diwali, Songkran, Easter and some of our families are currently celebrating Ramadan. This is a time of fasting, reflection, charitable giving and acts of kindness. We have asked some of our students to share their thoughts on this time of celebration for their families.

Taha: “It’s a month of fasting – the 9^th month of the Muslim calendar- it’s for us to understand poor people who can’t eat.  It helps me feel closer to my religion – I have to wake up early and pray – I feel good about myself as a Muslim.”

Zainab: “It’s not just for me, it’s for everyone, it’s a month of celebrating how the people feel when they don’t have food to eat.  I feel like I’m helping the poor by fasting to understand what they feel like if they don’t have food.”

Rafan:  “It’s important for me so I know how it feels for our first Imam and his family; even his 1 year old didn’t have food for 30 days.”

Anas: “It’s important because it teaches me patience and controls anger and makes you want to help more people as well.  You’ll realise how much poor people suffer without food.”

What do you do during Ramadan?

Fatima: “I fast. I break my fast when it gets dark with a date and water sometimes fruit. Then my family eat. In the morning before I start my fast I eat a date too.”

Arya: “I pray with my family. I do not do fasting. I want to do fasting when I get older.”

Mehermah: “I get up when it is dark to eat a little, and I help mum cook in the evening.”

Another festival celebrated today is Holi, celebrating spring (in the northern hemisphere), love and new life and the triumph of good over evil. This is a colourful festival with dancing and singing and is known as the Festival of Colours.

Yash - "I like Holi because you get to play with water guns and get covered in colours.”

Ryan – “It’s important because all of our friends come and we spray water and we put colour powders on them.  It’s lots of fun and it’s kind of important for me and my family.”

Our feature wall highlights work by 2-3-4 Reid. Students created bright and colourful fish in their art lessons which are now swimming in the foyer! Pop into our foyer and have a look over the coming week.

Crewative Competition

Aged Care Volunteer